"What? Pain is dead?"
Deidara's attention was instantly pulled away.
He completely forgot what Rengoku had just told him, and his face showed some disappointment:
"I still haven't seen that secret technique of his."
Rengoku couldn't help but laugh, "If you want to see it, I can take you to see it."
Deidara suddenly reacted, his eyes lighting up as he looked at Rengoku.
'Right, Rengoku's eye technique can let me see it.'
"You're drifting off topic," Rengoku reminded him.
Deidara's thoughts snapped back, and he looked at Rengoku with some surprise, "Don't tell me your Susanoo can already get that big?"
"Heh! Not really. I still can't make it that big right now."
Rengoku had just evolved into the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, and he definitely needed some practice.
"Then I can't guess it."
Rengoku kept him in suspense, "In that case, let's make a bet. If our Konoha successfully gets through this time..."
"...then we'll help you sit in the seat of the Fourth Tsuchikage."
Deidara's eyes instantly widened, "What? Me, become the Fourth Tsuchikage?"
He thought Rengoku was going to recruit him, but instead he said something completely ridiculous.
"You're not saying that backwards?", Deidara couldn't help saying.
"No, I really want you to be the Fourth Tsuchikage."
"If you don't have any power in your hands, how are you supposed to work with me?"
"Besides, Onoki's personality is extremely stubborn. Getting him to develop peacefully with our Konoha is actually very difficult."
Deidara shook his head again and again, "What's so good about being Tsuchikage? So many things every day, I'll have no time to do art."
"You fool! You're narrowing your own path," Rengoku scolded.
"Look at me, I'm the Hokage now, yet I'm still running around every day."
"What you're seeing now is Onoki being busy because he refuses to give up his power."
"If you become Tsuchikage yourself, if you want to play with clay then play with clay, if you want to play with bla… cough! cough!"
Rengoku coughed twice, "If you want to do art, then do art. You can even hold an art competition and let all the artists in the Land of Earth come interact with you."
"Or hold the biggest art exhibition, and invite the entire ninja world to come see your art."
"Isn't that way more fulfilling than you doing small explosions on buildings here and there?"
Rengoku's pitch worked, directly talking Deidara into wobbling on his stance.
Especially the part where Rengoku said "invite the entire ninja world to see your explosive art."
It hit Deidara right in the heart.
The entire ninja world seeing his art.
Deidara's eyes shone with infinite longing.
This temptation, for an artist, is basically impossible to refuse, okay?
"So, how about it, want to bet?"
"If you lose, we'll help you become the Fourth Tsuchikage and let your art be seen by the entire ninja world."
"If I lose, you don't lose anything," As he spoke, Rengoku held out a hand.
Deidara had already guessed that Rengoku must have some special trump card to get through this war.
And like Rengoku said, win or lose, he wouldn't suffer any loss.
Besides, Deidara suddenly found himself interested in the Tsuchikage position now.
"I'll bet!"
Deidara slapped his hand onto Rengoku's with a loud smack.
"Great. Then help me pass some information to Iwagakure."
Deidara gave a strange smile, "Perfect timing. That old man asked me to gather intel on your Akatsuki members anyway."
Rengoku burst out laughing. It really was like getting a pillow when you were sleepy.
"I'll have Konan organize a packet of intel for you. You just hand it to Onoki."
"As for information on Pain, just say Konan has always been the one giving you orders, and you never saw Pain. Maybe he's already dead."
"What are you trying to do with this?", Deidara asked curiously.
Because this step completely leaked Akatsuki intel.
It didn't seem to have any positive benefits.
Rengoku smiled, "Right now the entire ninja world is afraid of Akatsuki. With them being so restrained, my plan can't unfold."
He wasn't lying. Pain's existence made them afraid to launch large-scale invasions, and Senku's existence made the ninja world afraid to use jinchuriki.
The deterrence of both of them was created by Rengoku.
Now he needed to remove that deterrence so they would send lots of people to attack Konoha.
The reason Rengoku wasn't sending people to attack outward was because even if they took the neighboring countries now, they couldn't manage them at all.
His reform of Konoha and the Land of Fire hadn't even begun, and he lacked too many things to unify the ninja world.
This opportunity was perfect. If they wanted to invade the Land of Fire and a large enough number of them died there, they would settle down for a while.
Then Konoha could quickly sweep through the other villages and complete Rengoku's grand unification.
Deidara thought for a moment and found he could only barely follow Rengoku's train of thought, so he gave up.
"I'll just listen to you. But I want to see that secret technique of Pain's."
Deidara stared at Rengoku with glowing eyes.
"No problem. Then I'll let you see how Pain destroyed Konoha."
Rengoku chuckled, the Mangekyo Sharingan spinning as the illusion pulled Deidara into the day Konoha was destroyed by Shinra Tensei.
———
[Konoha Village]
After Rengoku successfully awakened the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, not only did his upper limit of eye power increase significantly, his body's capacity also increased by quite a bit.
Rengoku opened the Bond Stars system.
He specifically went to check Kimimaro's bond. Kimimaro's third bond was already unlocked.
Rengoku tapped on Kimimaro's third star.
["Ding, Kimimaro's level three bond has been unlocked."]
["Congratulations, host, you obtained: Dance of the Seedling Fern (Incomplete)."]
But the fourth bond was still locked, probably because Kimimaro was still too weak right now.
'But if I can use Dance of the Seedling Fern myself, then maybe…'
'I can put on a new disguise?'
Rengoku looked at the people whose four-star bonds he hadn't claimed yet.
There were Fugaku, Shisui, Konan, Nagato, Kaori, Minato and so on…
After thinking for a while, Rengoku chose Konan's.
["Ding, Konan's level four bond has been unlocked."]
["Congratulations, host, you obtained: Konan's 100 percent chakra."]
A massive amount of chakra descended into Rengoku's body.
Konan was 30 years old at this time, right at the peak of her physical ability and chakra levels.
After fully copying it one to one, Rengoku immediately felt that the space left for chakra in his body wasn't that much anymore.
After all, he had just copied and fused Karin's chakra.
His chakra reserves were already unbelievably enormous now, but his body was still too young, only 21 years old.
Rengoku originally only had fire and yin chakra natures, while Konan had wind, water, earth and yang.
After taking Konan's chakra, these chakra natures should eventually be converted into fire and yin.
But because he had just done the bloodline fusion experiment, it was different now.
Rengoku stretched out his hand, and the light of Palm Sage Technique immediately lit up on his palm. The previous double consumption was gone.
Which meant his body now had yang chakra.
But the wind, water and earth inside Konan's chakra didn't remain, because Rengoku's body had no way to convert and store them.
'Looks like I need to be more careful absorbing chakra in the future.'
'I can't let other chakra natures go to waste.'
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
[email protected]/AmbitiousTranslator
🥳Joining P@treon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰 You can access upto 20 advance chapter through P@treon.